


thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird

by De_Nugis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 08:19:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes catharsis doesn't work like that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for depression and some suicidal ideation.
> 
> Coda to 8.23, but not very spoilery.
> 
> Title from Wallace Stevens.

i.

You’re moving slow, is all. At some point you remember to pick up your coffee. It’s cold.

 

ii.

Dean’s being nice to you. It means he’s worried. There’s something you’re supposed to do about that. You exert yourself. You get out of the car at the farmer’s market he drove you to, buy a pear, eat it, buy some tomatoes, because red. You don’t do complex shades right now but you can pick red out of a lineup.

You put the paper bag on the back seat, close the door. Your face is wet.

It’s irrelevant, it's like having your nose run if it’s cold. Dean’s freaking out, though.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” he says. He’s either angry or guilty. Probably both. Probably both at you.

“Nothing,” you say, and it’s true. There are boxes of Nothing you’re not telling Dean, boxes stacked floor to ceiling back there in some room in the bat cave and the door’s sealed so tight that it’s perfectly dry and you don’t have to breathe. Your chest can be completely still, neutral.

“Jesus,” says Dean. “Look, if it’s something I said, Samantha . . .”

“It’s nothing,” you say.

 

iii.

“It’s not about us,” you tell Dean, “it’s not about you,” and that hurts him, too. 

“Can you just fucking leave it alone?” you say.

Maybe your capacity to cause pain exists in inverse relationship to your capacity to feel it.

 

iv.

Sometimes Dean goes out and maybe he’s drinking again. But you can’t worry so much. You lie on one of the beds. The ceiling is that speckled plaster stuff that breaks in dense cardboard strata. Like mica, only it’s not shiny, it’s dull tan under the chalky surface layer. The panels are sagging and some of the corners are chipped. The clock flips over a minute and a minute and a minute. One at a time.

Dean comes back. He seems OK. Maybe he was just hanging out with Cas. You don’t get up.

 

v.

You could be staring at your guts in your hands. It could happen. It could be on a hunt.

 

vi.

Dean’s not going to stop loving you. It comes in waves, monotonous. It’s irritating sometimes, maddening, if it would just shut up, if it would just crush you. Maybe you’re meant to be there for the sea, like a sandcastle, but it’s pointless, the sandcastle just sags and washes away. The sea doesn’t want it, anyway. The waves aren’t going to stop if the sandcastle’s gone.

 

vii.

Most of the time you function just fine. It’s not any different.

 

viii.

They’ve taken your shoelaces and your belt again. It’s not like you were going to hang yourself. Hanging yourself is a concept. A concept isn’t something a person does. It isn’t an action. Dean doesn’t have to worry that you’ll fuck up this time. Maybe at some point, looking out the window at the lawn with rabbits, maybe at some point you’ll formulate the concept of a fuck-up. But there won’t be blood. 

 

ix.

Maybe you’ll go out. They’ve got you locked in here but it’s not the Cage. You can formulate the concept of going out, and you’re grateful.

 

x.

You walked away. You had a dog. You hit a dog.

 

xi.

There isn’t any girl with a ghost this time and there isn’t Lucifer. You take your meds. It’s easy enough, they hand them to you.

 

xii.

Cas comes to visit once. He’s wearing the trenchcoat, even though he’s not an angel any more.

He asks how you are. You ask how he is. He wasn’t coping well, right after. He says he’s fine.

“Dean got you a dog,” he says.

You can see next time Dean comes that it’s true. Cas let the dog out of the bag. You smile a bit. Dean isn’t going to tell you, it’s going to be a surprise, for when you come home, but you can see it around Dean’s edges now you’re looking. He’s a bit happier, a bit more solid, because he got you a dog.

 

xiii.

You’re in the activities room. They have a potter’s wheel. The clay is cool and slick and it’s growing under your hands, something stirring. You’re concentrating. It’s coming out lopsided, sagging in. Of course it is. This is you, making it. 

And hey, self-pity. You greet it like a long-lost friend, honestly, you’re feeling some warmth here. You’re verklempt. It’s like it’s been there all along but you’re only just recognizing it, noticing that it’s something you know. Hi.

You stay at the wheel, feeling sorry for yourself, and the bowl collapses altogether, a slimy, off-kilter lump. It’s the most awesome thing.

Dean comes in and for God’s sake, he’s brought Garth.

“Hola, Sam,” says Garth. He hugs you and tells you you’re an idjit. He doesn’t say it right and it’s a stupid thing to say anyway but somewhere in there he’s got some of the moral authority.

“Just tell me you didn’t bring the puppet,” you say, and over Garth’s shoulder you see Dean grin.


End file.
